Wake-Up Call: Kids Today Have No Idea What a Rotary Phone Is


Floppy discs, Walkmans, cassette tapes, CDs, and beepers are all considered museum-ready relics today. If that makes you feel old, wait till you watch "Kids React to Rotary Phones," the latest viral video from Benny and Rafi Fine — the vloggers behind the viral videos, “Elders React to Eminem” and “Teens React to Gangam Style." The Fine Brothers put a spin-dial phone in front of 12 kids from the iPhone era and totally blew their minds. The video, which has been viewed more than 2 million times since it was posted this past Sunday, proves that kids today need a history lesson, or at least a rotary dial app on their smartphones. Not convinced? Here's how the kids, ages 5 to 13, responded to some very simple questions about the common rotary phone.

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Question 1: What is that?

All of them correctly answered that the rotary phone is a telephone. Phew. Some of the best responses: “A telephone but it’s oldish,” “This is like a phone that my mom used as a kid,” and "Alexander Graham Bell invented this." 

Question 2: How do you know it's a phone?
The same smart kid who gave Alexander Graham Bell as his first answer said, “Because I read history.” What a know-it-all.

Question 3: Do you know what they call that type of phone?
No one answered "rotary." When one kid heard the name, he said, “Another word to add to my vocabulary.”

Question 4: Do you know how to use a rotary phone to make a phone call?
The first step — picking up the phone — was lost on most. Step two, dialing, was a whole nother story.

Question 5: What sound do you listen to before you dial?
Remember the dial tone? “I think I’ve heard of that,” one kid said, unconvincingly.

Question 6: What is a busy signal?
When told that if a person was on the other line and you heard a busy signal (not even call waiting!) that the person wouldn't know there was a missed call, someone said it was " not fair."

Question 7: Do you know what a long-distance phone call is?
“Letters?” The follow-up should have been "Do you know what letters are?"

Question 8: How do you think you sent a text message?
Shockingly, SMS didn't become popular until the late '90s. Therefore, no, rotary phones don’t have T9 word or Morse code. That was a trick question. For these kids, life without texting seems utterly unimaginable.

Question 9: When was the last time you used a pay phone?
“I know what a payphone is. I heard that Adam Levine song.”

Question 10: iPhone vs. Rotary phone?
No-brainer.

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